Are you that person who’s always on the phone when you’re out with friends?  You know the one, always saying, “Sorry, I gotta take this,” as you put your finger up in the air signaling, you’ll just be a moment.  Are you every actually ‘just a moment’ though?  Or are you always on that call that needs to be taken, now, or everything will fall apart.

Professionals in the world of buying and selling know fully well how one can go from waiting anxiously for the phone to ring to having so much to do, hearing that phone ring, “JUST ONE MORE TIME’ can cause a panic attack!

Looking back, I bet part of the reason you got into real estate was the ability to create your own schedule.  You took the leap to trade in a steady paycheck and benefits for a profession that allowed you to pluck yourself from the rat race, traffic jams, useless corporate meetings, and hierarchy.  It was a small price to pay comparatively, and most of us wouldn’t dream of going back.

The World of Your Own Creation

Your own business allows you to enjoy the best of both worlds, but (and this is a big but) they’re both worlds of your own creation.  There’s a joke about working in Real Estate.  It goes, when you’re a Realtor you get to work half a day – the first half and then the second half!

Zero to overwhelmed is a speed we’re used to driving but overwhelm affects us in two separate yet very linked ways.

Nature goes through a cyclical pattern –  You can say the same for a real estate business. Even the ebbs and flows of the ocean are cyclical.  The logical conclusion = The practices you implement in your slow periods directly affect how (much or little) you suffer during the busy periods!

There’s a sum of the parts here too which affects your productivity!  Your productivity affects your whole life.

Your whole life! That’s big. I don’t want to make this sound like a ‘do or die’ issue, but it is though.  If there’s no ‘do’ in your business, it’s dead.  A dead business creates chaos in your personal life.  An overwhelmed workplace that you’ve created by not having the best systems can actually create the worst of both worlds.

How do we solve this?

Okay, we’re in a business where emergency calls happen.  Emergency calls shouldn’t take up a good portion of your life and if they slip to much into your social scene, you’re out of balance.

Here’s a bit of advice for the work-at-homers.  These ideas can help you look at your week in advance and preplan your week around your pre-set appointments.

1. Pick a day to plan – I promise you I won’t advise Sundays, because that’s cliché, but pick a day. Make this the same day of the week, every week, when you plan your schedule.  Start with your appointments and go from there to look for blocks of time to get things done.  Plan your time first, your personal appointments i.e. family responsibilities, doctor appointments, yoga class or health-related activities, social gatherings, and other time slots that are specifically about you.  Next, are your business appointments – which requires a productivity-first schedule.  Clients come first of course.  Lead generation should be scheduled at a consistent time and that time should be protected.  Here’s also where you add the appointments that put you in front of your clients, closing deals.  Following, are time slots for what makes the business run.  Activities around deals and what you need to do to close them successfully while giving the client their best experiences come next.  Third are the time blocks that support your business, i.e. marketing, research, or education.  These are the things bring you business
2. Set monthly goals
   1. Let’s start this one with a question. Have you created a business plan?  When you’ve created a proper business plan, your monthly goals and tasks are already set out.  The goals I’m referring to here are specifically monthly goals, for yourself.  Do you want to add more personal time to your calendar?  How about finding ways to beat procrastination, etc?
   2. Write them down. Writing these goals down is known to have a greater impact than just thinking them or saying them.  A written goal is tangible.  It’s something you can see, touch, read and modify if needed.
   3. Now that you’ve written them down, you should sequence and prioritize them. This allows you to deem which are the biggest priority and which ones mean less to you.
   4. Think of what you’ve prioritize as a roadmap to achieving your goals. It also helps with prioritizing what your next step is.
3. Speaking of steps, start now.
   1. I’ve found that it’s not always the huge overhauls or the big steps we take that make the most difference. These are usually how we start over and if you’re looking to improve on what you have already built, the little adjustments make the biggest difference.
   2. Agents are bold entrepreneurs!  We take the biggest of risks without a single promise of financial gain.  Overworking yourself, however, is a failure in your business and your life, whether you make a profit or not.  Start by making a monthly goal list, in writing, to keep on track.  The major upside of writing small monthly goals is your feeling of accomplishment when you reach them.  Think realistically, put them in your planner and check them off at the end of the month.  .

The Payoff

Breaking down your success into smaller, realistic monthly goals is a steady pace to building your business to something large in a way that’s totally attainable.

It’s like taking a journey from where you are to where you want to be, one step at a time.

I’m lucky enough to have aligned my business with the Number 1 Brokerage in the United States for training and support.  I’ve seen the lives and businesses of people who have just started out turn into bold new lives.  They were able to pull from the training and education available to them, what worked for them,  They didn’t have to reinvent the wheel.  This made their goals easier to break down and work on and achieve.

It’s happened to me. My success is not only in my business but in my personal life as well.  The advice I’ve given you in this post is can be obtained working on your own business, but partnering with a brokerage that is known for helping people help themselves succeed can make succeeding in your business a whole lot easier…and quite a bit more fun.

Let’s talk if this interests you.  Contact me by filling out this form.